Director Ric Roman Waugh was planning on taking a break after wrapping a long blockbuster shoot – and then Jason Statham called.
“The scariest thing for me is finishing a movie and wondering where I’ll find the next thing that’ll emotionally grip me”, he told Zavvi. “I’d just finished shooting Greenland: Migration, which was a long shoot and a very taxing experience for everybody involved, when I got a call from Jason Statham about a story he was really passionate about.
“His description of it really struck a chord, and when I read something, it has to grip me in the gut because if it doesn't emotionally grab me then how am I going to convey that to you as an audience? Shelter spoke volumes to me as a story of two lost souls in their own forms of exile who find family in one another, and as well as that emotional connection, it spoke to social themes of what justice means today, all wrapped in a huge action ride.”
Shelter stars Statham as a retired assassin living on a remote island off the Scottish coast, long assumed dead, his only contact with the outside world being with the family who deliver the weekly supplies to the lighthouse he tends to. On the day of a perilous storm, he winds up having to save young Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) from a shipwreck that takes her father’s life; heading to the mainland to buy clothes for her, he’s spotted on CCTV by a government surveillance system which mistakes him for a wanted terrorist, and things go swiftly downhill from there.
Breathnach only made her film debut earlier this month, as one of the Shakespeare children in Oscar-nominated drama Hamnet. This couldn’t be further from the realm of a prestige costume drama, but Waugh knew the young actor had the goods to go toe-to-toe with Statham, even without anything remotely similar on her resume.
“I’m going to brag about her for a second, not only because she’s a tremendous actress who had undeniable chemistry with Jason, but because in my films, everybody does their own stunts. With Jason, the camera is six inches from his face so you know it’s him fighting, but in that early scene where he’s rescuing her from the seat, that’s Bodhi out there in all the turbulence!
“We did that scene for real, and what I love about her wasn’t just her performance but her physicality – she wanted to be part of the action, and with a dance partner like Jason, she wanted to bring it. Seeing her transform was such a great experience; we nicknamed her Action Bodhi because she just threw herself into it.”
It’s only her second film role, and far more physically demanding than Hamnet, but the young star was drawn to both scripts for the same reason.
She told Zavvi: “Hamnet was completely different in tone, but both were very emotional, genuinely touching stories to me. I’d never done any action before, so this was very exciting to do – a completely different experience, and I enjoyed every moment of it, especially because it stands out next to everything I’ve been doing recently!
“I was so scared going into the action scenes, but they ended up being my favourite part about making this movie, especially the boat scene. Waiting to film that and being told that the boat was going to flip over, the wave machine starting to move the wave towards me, was really frightening at first, especially as the wind was so loud I couldn’t hear anything else going on around me.
“The water stuff ended up being the highlight of my experience, but I also did training for other stunts as well, including weapons training, boxing, and just jumping on people. I’m so happy that I got to do a lot of the action myself.”
Waugh was playing with a much smaller budget than his previous film here, but as the central set pieces prove, he did everything possible to make sure corners weren’t cut, and that it felt as large-scale as his previous special effects-driven blockbuster.
“I never really think about the budget; I'm always thinking more about how I'm going to bring it to life in an authentic way. I think sound stages are boring, and they can make everybody on set fall asleep, so I will always opt to shoot in real environments, so you can actually feel that we’re out there in real inclement weather on the side of a cliff in the middle of the sea.
“It can be exhausting and time consuming because of the safety precautions we need to take, but when we’re out there and you see a performance like the one Bodhi gives, it feels all the more gut wrenching because of the environment. It can be taxing for a performer, especially as they’re thrown into water and car chases, but it gives it a kinetic energy that’s priceless – the audience can feel that it’s real, which makes it all worth it.”
The father-daughter chemistry between Statham and Breathnach, as well as an open ending that could pave the way for a sequel, had me wondering if the director was setting himself up for a Shelter 2. He’d love to, but the thought has honestly never crossed his mind.
“Personally, I’d make a hundred more movies with these two, but I never go into a movie thinking about setting up a franchise – it's a kiss of death, because if you’re thinking about that, you’re not really focusing on the one story you should be telling. I’m a big softy, and each of my movies ends with a big emotional gut punch followed by a glimmer of hope.
“I never want people to feel that everything is hopeless at the end of the movie, and that’s the soft side of me winning out. I can’t end a movie without a wink wink to the audience that these characters will be ok!”
Shelter is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 29th January.
